With the new season just around the corner, the signing of Kevin Prince Boateng on a year long loan deal from Genoa may well be the last acquisition Milan make. For a club of the stature of Milan, the fact that this signing may well be the most notable one made in a summer that has seen yet another veteran in Mario Yepes arrive along with the modest Marco Amelia and the tidy but unspectacular Sokratis, it is quite simply not good enough. In fact, it is nowhere near good enough.
It seems quite clear that for this upcoming season, Milan do not intend to challenge for top honours. Though Boateng’s presence in the Milan midfield will add some much needed youth and vitality, Boateng’s presence will not be enough to push Milan to greater heights than last season.
Why Milan even courted Boateng in the first place remains a mystery. It is not like his form last season for Portsmouth was so good as to put him in the reckoning for a move to a big club. Nor was his world cup form good enough to put him on the radar of Europe’s best clubs.
Yet, Milan found reason enough to pursue the young Ghanian and that they did.
But, even stranger than Milan’s pursuit of Boateng was how the deal for the player was concluded. For Boateng arrives in Milan not as a Milan player but as a Genoa player on loan from Genoa, the club who purchased him with the sole intent of loaning him to Milan.
Why Milan pursued this course of action is yet another mystery in the case of Kevin Prince Boateng.
It seems, at least from the outside, that Milan in making this deal are set to lose whilst Genoa can only gain. For if Boateng proves a success with Milan, than Milan will have to pay Genoa more than what Genoa originally paid for the player. In this scenario, Genoa can profit from the sale of a player that has never even donned their strip.
If Boateng does not prove a success with Milan, than Genoa can still gain by acquiring a player with one full season of experience in the Serie A. Milan, in turn, will have suffered from the lack of form of the player that was their biggest signing of the summer.
Time is running out for Milan to prepare a squad sufficiently competitive to be a contender for honours next season. Given how Milan’s transfer campaign has unfolded this summer, there seems little hope that much will change between now and the start of the new Serie A season.
Similar to last season, Milan fans must be more anxious than excited by what may eventuate this coming season.
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